Petrol And Alcohol Do Mix.

Chronogical Blog Entries:

Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 22:42:37 +1000

There are two type of people in the world ...
Those that divide the world into two types of people.
Those that don't.

- Old Jungle Saying.

In this morning's Age, the economics editor, Tim Colebatch, stated that
there are basically two types of politicians. And these were Doers and
pleasers. According to him, a doer was a leader who would look
for solutions when confronted with a problem, and would make decisions. A
pleaser, on the other hand would try to navigate through the troubled
waters of the body politic by offending the least number of people. A
pleaser would pretend that problems did not exist and would avoid
decision-making.

I think most readers of The Age would, like me, have gained the impression
that Tim Colebatch considers doers to be the more admirable group.

The new government have delivered their budget, and it has generally been
well received. The opposition leader in his reply decided to make a stand on
alcohol and petrol, two items that have been near and dear to Aussies for most
of the previous century. It seems that Dr. Nelson's fight for our children's
right to get cheap drinks did not make that much traction with voters. Perhaps
in three or four years when the kiddies are old enough to vote, he might see
some benefit from this courageous stand.

The question of petrol however did strike a chord with the public. Dr.
Nelson committed his party to a policy of reducing taxes on petrol. And as his
deputy Malcolm Turnbull has admitted, it is good politics, but bad policy. It
is the hastily conceived, knee-jerk policy of the pork-barrel that came to
typify the previous prime minister in his final days in office.

To return to Tim Colbatch's division, it is the policy of a
pleaser. A doer would consider how to fundamentally restructure
our use of petrol in particular and fossil fuels in general, and examine our
use of motor vehicles and transport in general. The populist approach of
tinkering with taxes is a short-term, ineffective response that would deliver
minimal benefit. Even if they are talking about a radical approach like
abolishing fuel taxes altogether (which they aren't). The proposals are only
fiddling at the margins. Any benefit to consumers could be wiped out (or made
redundant) by a busy day's trading on the futures' markets. It is a short-term
policy that only looks as far ahead as the next opinion poll.

Already we are hearing similar rhetoric from candidates in the USA. But at
least they have the excuse of an approaching election.

And it is curious that our new prime minister, despite the fact that he
enjoys an approval rating that may be the biggest in the history of Australian
politics, and despite the fact that the next election is almost three years
away, has also announced that he too was giving serious consideration to the
poll-driven, frivolous policy of tinkering with petrol taxes.